Posts tagged ‘Theatre Ontario’

Closing in on the final weekend of Fringe and boy are my arms tired! (you know…from flogging shows…okay fine, it’s not that good a joke. I’m tired.)

Best of Fringe and all that good stuff can be found here, and before you go charging off, please take a look in your Fringe bag, which was lovely and prepared on day one, but now – maybe not so much. So go get another Chapstick, and a fresh sunscreen, refill your water bottle and fix the pin on your tip the Fringe button (or get another one) and get on with the final weekend!

What’s Going On

Alumni Party last night at the Tranzac a lovely wonderful time, so great to see so many years of Fringe represented and celebrated. When I was leaving Ellie-Ray Hennessey stopped me to ask if I would be interviewed for a Theatre Ontario video for a minute to answer the question – “why theatre?” And of course YES I will and ran to put on lipstick and I hope I said something halfway intelligent. We’ll see.

And earlier yesterday, along with a fantastic meeting with Soheil from Modern Times, I’d come across what I thought was a great post from Seven Sentences – “Too often we chase things that are not sacred, or we pursue our work with an unhealthy attitude AND we lose touch with the uniqueness of who we are and what we have to offer.”

Why theatre? I joke a lot, I say things like, “what else am I supposed to do? be bored? Or worse – be boring?” and threaten to go work as a claims adjuster in Scranton, and point out that we are a hit at cocktail parties – but the work we do – why we’re a hit at cocktail parties?

Because we forget sometimes that what we do is extraordinary. The making something out of nothing, the spirit of generosity, the hit the deadline, the midnight emails, the rehearsals, phone calls, do you need, can I have, yes you can, please and thank you – we make magic on a daily basis. The, “yeah we can do that” never “that’s impossible“, the pride and the bravos not just for the arias but for the finding of the cable we need 45 minutes before show.

This is not a post of arrogance, but of truth. The joy and pride I take in that I am fortunate enough not to sell shoes or shill for body parts, which are important, I agree, we need shoes and body parts – but me? I get to shill for magic that can change your life.

I talked at length to people today about audience response, not just applause but audience members holding their breath at songs, or call and responding in a show that wasn’t audience participation, I talked about a show from ten years ago that still gives me goosebumps.

A Fringe show at Factory the day of the flooding no power madness said if they couldn’t do the show in the theatre, they’d do it in the courtyard.

Hume Baugh’s Facebook status the other day: “8 scenes of Shrew in our first preview with no power (microphones, lights, sound, cue lights) until it got too dark to play. proving once again that when everything else is taken away, what is left is theatre.”

The artistic director of a large institutional theater referred to me as “pro-artist” a few years back. It was meant to be a derogatory comment. When did being “pro-artist” make one an enemy of resident theaters? When did large theater institutions begin to see their own interests as threatened by the interests of artists? And do we think this is a positive development for the American theater?

I find it disturbing that those that have attempted to shine a light on the needs of artists and the fact that those working in institutions have fared rather well relative to the artists they employ over the past thirty years, are now seen as divisive.

Our Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP) offers financial support for unique and flexible training with a chosen mentor in any theatrical discipline except performance.

And finally – Playwrights Guild is having a Summer Book Sale! you got your Michael Ondaatje, your Rick Salutin, your George F. Walker, your Moynan King and many others. Take a wander to their website to see what they have and how to get it.